Detroit Red Wings Will Now Put Their Season on the Back of a Mule

Though considered an ignoble and obstinate animal, mules have proved to be among the most important animals in history.

In fact, the American West was settled largely due to the pioneering spirit of a few select Easterners and the relentlessly powerful mule teams they drove.

When Johan Franzen began his career in 2005 with the Detroit Red Wings, the hope was he'd use his size effectively enough to be a decent penalty killer and third-line forward.

During that year's training camp, captain Steve Yzerman noticed the large and powerful Swede exerting himself with such ferocity he remarked that Franzen "works like a mule."

From that point on, Johan "Mule" Franzen became a permanent fixture on the Red Wings' roster.

However, his role as just a gritty defensive forward didn't last long, as the end of the 2007-08 season saw Franzen emerge as perhaps the team's most natural goal scorer.

Franzen eclipsed Gordie Howe's franchise record for most game-winning goals in one month (five) when he scored six in March of 2008.

Franzen lead the team in scoring during the playoffs that year, potting 13 goals en route to Detroit's fourth Stanley Cup in 11 years.

The following season, Franzen proved his unlikely emergence as one of the league's best power-forwards was no fluke as he was again one of Detroit's most reliable offensive weapons, scoring 34 goals among 59 points in the regular season and 23 points in 23 playoff games in 2008-09.

Not bad for an unheralded third-round pick (2004) the team was hoping would turn out to be a reasonably effective grinder.

True to form, Franzen scored the Red Wings' first game-winning goal this season against Chicago, the team's third game of the year.

Unfortunately, that was the last time Franzen has been on the ice for the Red Wings, as he suffered a torn ACL during the game that required surgery and rehabilitation for most of the season.

Franzen is set to make his return Tuesday night against the St. Louis Blues.

As much as he's meant to his team over the past four seasons, he's going to be counted on to be nothing short of a messiah for the Red Wings' playoff hopes.

Amidst the multitude of injuries, scoring slumps and defensive lapses that have exemplified the Red Wings' season to date, the Red Wings' hallmark this season, has been their inability to maintain a sustained effort for 60 minutes a game.

The Wings have lost 31 games this year (21-10) and sit ninth in the West.

Twelve of those losses have come as the result of the Red Wings' surrendering leads.

The latest was one of the more embarrassing they've faced this season.

On Saturday in Los Angeles, the Red Wings' jumped out to a 3-0 lead against a very good Kings team to end the first period.

By the end of the second, the score was tied 3-3.

With less than three minutes left in the game, Detroit surrendered their fourth and final unanswered goal and left the Staples Center losers of two straight.

What made this loss embarrassing was certainly not their opponents. 

The young LA Kings team is absolutely for real and is going to be prepared to do some serious damage in the playoffs.

No, what was so embarrassing was the fact that, with their playoff lives now firmly hanging in the balance and a gloriously dominating start in the first period and a 3-0 lead to work with, they couldn't manage to work hard enough to win the game.

They couldn't even hang on for a point.

Now, Detroit did play an outstanding third period, firing shot after shot at Kings goalie Jonathan Quick and hitting two posts.

However, the problem was the contest's middle frame in which they allowed the Kings back into the game by letting off on the pressure, turning the puck over, and allowing the Kings to dictate the pace of the game. 

All this led to three unanswered goals, setting the Kings up for a "next goal wins" scenario in the third.

Folks, this was game 58 of 82, and with the exception of Franzen, all of Detroit's marquee players were in the line-up.

If, at this point in the season, this team can't win after giving themselves a three goal lead, their chances of winning the vast majority of the next 24 games are less than probable.

That being said, the hockey gods made sure that, once again, the insult of Detroit's loss was augmented with the now requisite injury, three of them in fact.

Tomas Holmstrom (leg), Patrick Eaves (ankle), and Drew Miller (ankle) all finished the game somewhere in the bowels of the Staples Center, and their status for Tuesday is questionable at the very best.

All three of these players have been important pieces for the Wings this season, and their loss is not going to be absorbed easily, especially if all three are gone for an extended period of time.

Enter Johan Franzen.

From the time he went down to injury, the Red Wings have envisioned a scenario in which his return would prove to be merely fuel to the Wings' already blazing fire, rather than the spark they hope ignites it.

When he takes the ice in Game 59, the Red Wings are praying it will be analogous to dropping a Molotov cocktail onto the smoldering embers that is their season.

This is hardly the position they wanted to put Franzen in, but nevertheless, his team's lackluster play the entire season makes his return infinitely more important than it should have been.

However, just as any machine requires several pieces in place in order to work properly, sometimes one player can complete a team in such a way that what was once stalled begins to move forward with velocity.

Franzen's work ethic that has remained intact since his first training camp may just be what the Red Wings need to finally stop shooting themselves in the foot and make a serious run towards the playoffs.

Then again, as any settler of the American West would tell you, one mule does not a team make.